Dull turd Tim Pawlenty actually did do something dingbatty enough to qualify him for the second tier of the Republican presidential candidates: He put some fringe-right nutter from the Bush Administration in charge of the Minnesota public school curriculum, and this educational terrorist installed a board of fundamentalist homeschoolers and extremist libertarians who then decided that kindergarteners shouldn’t be taught sharing (too socialist!) and that “We Shall Overcome” was an awfully dark choice, if you know what we mean, to be teaching kids as a “protest song.” So they picked “DIXIE” instead.

The new study guides also downplayed the purchase, imprisonment and forced labor of Africans brought to America as slaves. Why? So as not to sour the children’s view of the Free Market, which worked exceptionally well down South when the labor was free, too. What else was included in this 2003 rewriting of the state’s standards? Jesus, obviously. Lots and lots of Jesus. Children were to be taught that American Jesus was the actual head of the six or seven branches of government — like the mythological sea monster, the Hydra.

Was this just some hands-off/invisible hand-down-the-pants kind of thing, so maybe Pawlenty wasn’t really involved? NO PAWLENTY IS EVIL. He said this about gayly named Cheri Yecke, the Bush Administration goon brought in to dumb-bomb Minnesota’s curriculum: “Dr. Yecke is precisely the right person to lead that change.”

Yecke formed a committee of educators, parents, politicians, and businessmen, and set them to work drafting the standards. But as Evans and Norling later explained in an article they wrote for the Organization of American Historians’ newsletter, the meetings seemed overrun by conservative activists, some of whom did not reveal their affiliations. One member, identified simply as a parent and former teacher, was on the board of directors of the conservative Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank that’s been described—by a supporter—as a “training ground for a lifetime campaign in the trenches of political warfare.” (Christine O’Donnell and Andrew Breitbart are both alums.) Private religious academies and homeschoolers were well-represented, even though the standards would have no impact on their curricula.

So what happened? Why aren’t the black kids from Minneapolis public schools being marched around in white cone hats (no sharing!) singing “I wish I was in de land ob cotton, Old times dar am not forgotten; Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land”? Why aren’t they being made to sing that? It’s a perfectly good song.

Because the professors and legitimate teachers of Minnesota did verily rise up, with fists, and say to T-Paw the dull turd, “Uhh, no.” So the state Senate’s Democrat majority borrowed that bit of spine for long enough to reject Yecke’s formal confirmation as educational commissioner.

And Pawlenty just let her lose and didn’t fight back or re-appoint her to some slightly different position. He just tossed her aside, because he’s a twat. Can’t even stand up for “fixing the schools,” that Tim Pawlenty. As for Cheri Yecke, she’s down in Arkansas working for some wingnut academy to protect the cultural Jesus rights of white people. [Mother Jones]

I didn't look any further, that's some satire. Ah well, I thought the first Flashman novel was fact not fiction, too. Of course, I was 11 years old for that one.

zhubajie

Flashie for President!

ShaveTheWhales

McSweeny does genius-level snark/satire.

horsedreamer_1

In a battle of parents, Mc Sweeney's writer v. Libertarian, no matter who wins, we all lose. Win, also, since at least one of them is going down. Still…

dogscantlookup

Singing “DIXIE” in Minnesota the north star state, that makes a lot of sense.

Native_of_SL_UT

Kinda like singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" in a Mosque, ain't it?

OneYieldRegular

Sort of makes one wonder exactly how "Dixie" would serve as a protest song – though considering that this is Tim Pawlenty and Michelle Bachmann's Minnesota we're talking about, I could certainly appreciate someone's getting into the spirit of the song.

DahBoner

Dixie = We Heart Zero Minimum Wages

V572..whatever

See, that's so unfair. Don't forget the slaves got room and board and all the overseer cock they could handle.

HistoriCat

Not to mention they didn't have the burdensome responsibilities of freedom. I mean, you can't really expect those dark-skinned people to handle personal responsibility can you?

OneDollarJuana

The South has perfected ignoring facts and reality. The only ones who can see through the miasma of false history, pompous tradition, destructive personal relationships, and a fierce adherence to the philosophy and practice of feudalism have done so through the over-generous application of strong drink, usually resulting in an early but welcome death.

I was wondering when the wingnuts would get around to calling "sharing" socialist. If Jesus came back right now, I'd give him about 5 minutes before the Christians tore him apart. Come to think of it, at this point he'd probably be an atheist.

comrad_darkness

oh my god, I am so stealing that for my first great american novel. the second coming with an atheist jesus.

Fukui_sanYesOta

Our Father
Who ain't in heaven
Rejected be thy name
Thy kingdom none
Thy will be shunned
On Earth since there is no heaven
For thine ain't the kingdom
Nor power, nor glory
Never, I say never
Amen

http://timothysees.blogspot.com/ natl_indecency_cmdr

Old Mary, full of grease,
Your heart stops within you,
Scary are the fruits of your tomb,
and harsh are the terms of your sins,

Old Mary, sister of mine, mother to the world,
carry this burden now until the moment of your last breath
Now 'till the moment of your last breath.

[dead weather]

http://wonkette.com Ken Layne

TOO LATE.

/ask me later.

comrad_darkness

What, you've already stolen it? Well, no rush. I have to learn how to write first anyway.

DashboardBuddha

"Fuck my old man…just fuck him" J. Christ

http://wonkette.com Ken Layne

"You wanna go mano-a-mano right here, old man?"

comrad_darkness

LOL. Apparently what my evening lacked was more heresy.

Ducksworthy

This isn't heresy. Heresy is saying Jeebus favors tax cuts for the rich.

http://timothysees.blogspot.com/ natl_indecency_cmdr

You know what I got for Christmas? Oh, it was a banner fucking year at the old Christ family. I got a carton of cigarettes. The old man grabbed me and said "hey! smoke up JC!"

DashboardBuddha

I can totally see Jesus walking up to the old man and saying, "Seriously, what the fuck were you thinking?"

Fukui_sanYesOta

Ha! That'd be Old Testament god, and he'd be all, like, "I can change! I'll stop drinking! Just give me another chance!"

DashboardBuddha

Truer words were never said. Heinlein said that the old testament god had the morals of a spoiled child. As much as I respect and admire Bob, I have to disagree. OT God is more like a violent alcoholic.

http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com trampndirtdown

I'm reading God Knows by Joseph heller right now, and he describes God as a complete asshole.

comrad_darkness

Meanwhile Satan is off to the side rubbing his hands saying, "heh, tricked Him again. Omniscient, my ass."

OneDollarJuana

I was thinking of "sharing" my baseball bat with Pawlenty, but since he is opposed to sharing, maybe I'll just "give it to him".

grigoritheocto

Yes, but then you'd be forcing him to share his blood with the bat, which would be communism. See, there is no way to beat them. No matter what we do, we are commies! We are so fucked!

http://www.acepilots.com/wwi/can_bishop.html WABishop

Funny how the conservatives evoke the name of Jesus while implementing the policies of the Romans. Crucifixion, for instance, was a zero-tolerance approach to crime.

zhubajie

It's no secret the religious right worships the devil and just *calls* him Jesus. Who offered health and wealth, all the kingdoms of the world?

I was thinking that it was Tonya Harding U, clubbing their way to the top of the Christian Ladder.

zhubajie

Are they like Bob Jones U.? Self-accredited?

horsedreamer_1

Somehow, I could see the Stanford band stealing that "Salute to Jonestown".

edgydrifter

Ugh. Even T-Paw's scandals are boring.

mog253

And no sense of irony at all.

BlueStateLibel

Because if you want to teach kids real patriotism, make them sing the anthem for a failed secessionist movement, great idea.

Sue4466

Seriously, WTF is with people who worship the Confederacy claiming to be the most patriotic Americans? actually suggesting that loving the Confederacy is a requirement for patriotism? Fuck.

Beowoof

Folks still hoping to secede and go back to 1850

horsedreamer_1

Another thing for which the Right can blame California: the Compromise of 1850/California Compromise. California enters as a Free State, & slave-auctions are banned in DC; on the flip-side, fugitive slave hunters were allowed to cross into Free Soil states to capture runaways. Still…

GuanoFaucet

Great, now all the Minnesota schoolchildren are going to turn out to be dope smoking neo-marxists.

We should really be fighting back, with some seriously liberal reading list suggestions. Then the net result will be the Celebrity Deathmatch model of education: Ayn Rand vs. Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Welch's Straight from the Gut vs. Thich Nhat Thanh's The Miracle of Mindfulness. The matchups would be awesome, and the libruls would generally win.

horsedreamer_1

Thomas King Forcade, a Great American.

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

NOT.

ShaveTheWhales

Turn out to be?

http://mockiavelli.tumblr.com/ smrtmnky

on the bright side, they've still got schools in Minnesota

http://ifthethunderdontgetya.blogspot.com/ ifthethunderdontgetya

Sounds like T-Paw isn't even gonna get a job in the Trump-Bachmann Administration.
`

comrad_darkness

Christianity is not Jesus' fault.

OneYieldRegular

As Nietzche said, there's only been one Christian.

zhubajie

Americanity isn't Xty.

mog253

too true,after all they killed him for it.

Negropolis

Actually, it is. Remember the whole Great Commission? Yeah, it's completely his fault.

Gopherit

I anxiously await my copy of the Atlas Shrugged coloring book, courtesy of the Minn Committee for Destroying Anything Good about Childhood.

nounverb911

Actually that's the script for part 2 of the movie.

poncho_pilot

it only comes with two crayons: black and white.

Gopherit

and a pack of pall malls

Beowoof

The bright spot is that Paul Ryan plans on no medicare being there so they can all die young before sponging off the system. Unlike Ayn Rand who it turns out may have enjoyed some socialism before her passing.

poncho_pilot

Paul Mauls?

BZ1

Can't they just arm the Kindergartners, just like in Texas, you know, the well-regulated militia starts young.

I'm so old fashioned I remember a time when morons were kept clear of anything to do with education.

Texan_Bulldog

She'll be fine; there are probably more of the blacks to insult in AR than in MN anyway.

zhubajie

Lots more Indians.

Callyson

While he's at it, T – Paw should just change the state slogan from "The Star of the North" to "I Know What's Mine."
Also, upfists for everyone to balance out the downfisting troll with nothing better to do.

Oh my fucking word. I knew the bitch was evil, but fuck…that whore makes Satan blush. If she is the standard bearer for the "young guns" of the GOP, we are more fucked than I ever dreamed.

Beowoof

I was going to write something about Ayn, but her philosphy means I have to call my daughters and tell them and their kids to fuck off, nothing for Easter, I am eating the chocolate I bought myself and the little fuckers should get jobs.

Worthly[♬♪♬♪♫♪♬]Skum

Look away! Look away! Look away!
ACLU

Gopherit

Really, I am trying very hard to be snarky about this, but these are horrible, horrible people. I hope Garrison Kellior finally gets mad and takes a bat to them.

Worthly[♬♪♬♪♫♪♬]Skum

Well, it's been a bloody week here in Lake Wobegon …

$exy$murf

Minnesota: Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the governors are below average.

Gopherit

Ain't that the truth.

Beowoof

When you suck enough to make Jesse Ventrura look like George Washington, you have to be bad.

OneDollarJuana

This episode brought to you by Gunpowder Milk Biscuits. The biscuits that ''give shy people the strength to stand up and do what needs to be done.''

http://wonkette.com/ weejee

Shed a tear for the northern tier. What is up with Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan? Did the zebra mussels or lamprey eels pooping in the Great Lakes cause a problem with the drinking water?

V572..whatever

I spent many a summer in WI and MN and don't remember all this anger and class warfare. Maybe we can blame it on Romney (pere) who had all the Rambler factories in Janesville, etc.

emmelemm

My mom had a Rambler when I was growing up…. Good times! (not really)

http://wonkette.com Ken Layne

These people are what, 20% of the electorate? And they're reactionary white upper-middle-classers who "got theirs" and have particular anger for the cold midwest's long history and present practice of democratic labor politics. These are the people who cheered Wellstone's plane crash. They're the shit of the earth.

V572..whatever

In the Midwest of long ago no one knew about the Gheys or autoerotic strangulation or even rape — it was “assault.” Now the Poors and the Urbans and their jive-ass rap are inescapable, even if you live on two-lane Highway 51. So they're mad. They never liked working at the Rambler plant or Milwaukee Tool or even Harley-Davidson, and those jobs are gone anyway. So they're mad at the Kenyan colored man in the White House and the workers who still have union jobs. Walker taps this somehow.

ShaveTheWhales

Mm. Watch out for generalization. I don't know how you define "long ago", but none of those things were unknown 45 years ago.

The base problem is job loss — the timber/paper industry has gone to shit because of all the fast-growth pines now down in the Carolinas, and a lot of the manufacturing was tied to the Big Three auto companies, and, well, fuck. And, at least in Wisconsin, unions have still retained some clout, which leads to periodic showdowns where management threatens to move everything to, e.g., Arkansas.

When people lose jobs, they lose the sense that life is going well, and they look for someone else to blame. The urbans have been there forever, but now their jive-ass rap is just as likely being played by white-ass wangsters, so it is inescapable. For reasons that I have never been able to understand (although I think it must have the same roots as religion), people (at least Europeans and Americans) tend to respond to SMALL differences in financial well-being by wanting to pull down the slightly-better-off, rather than insisting that everyone should move up to the slightly-better-off level. (Note: this is the point of unions).

I think Walker "tapped into this" because "drag everybody down" is sort of the default case. It takes a lot of work — much of it futile — to try to explain to people that, yes, they're being fucked over — but by their own employers, and not by other workers.

zhubajie

In my father's case, the world didn't stand still when he was a boy. Things got too complicated around 1950, he says.

ThundercatHo

Don't forget OH-IO, our Gov is fucking over the teachers and is also planning to sell the turnpike.

zhubajie

When I left Cincy, early '90s, they were facing a billion dollar replacement bill for the sewers, destroyed by corrosive chemical waste. What's happened there?

Ducksworthy

They went back to dumping it directly into Mill Creek. Problem solved.

As I was waxing rhapsodic last night, I went to elementary school in librul country in the 1970s, with lots of "ethnic" and "urban" children, and we sang a lot of "We Shall Overcome".

AND LOOK HOW I TURNED OUT!

Wait, what?

http://www.kenlayisalive.org KenLayIsAlive

I guess Pawlenty believes in getting back to the basics in education, you know, the three Ks.

BaldarTFlagass

Too bad Slim Pickens ain't around any more, they could get him to film an instructional film with a target audience of the Minnesota pickaninny kids, and he could teach them how to sing "De Camptown Ladies." Well, maybe they can find the old clip on Youtube.

It's stories like these that make me want to gun down the door-to-door God-botherers, and go out and deface their billboards. Instead I just keep my head down with the Bacardi and Bubblegum Train Wreck or whatever the hell my dealer is calling it this month.

http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com trampndirtdown

I pay you guys to lay track- not dance around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots.

Put me down for the Union, bring it on you secessionist mutha fuckas.

poncho_pilot

"well, I've been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones."

comrad_darkness

Dude, do what I do, tell them the shit about their religion they didn't know.

Joseph Smith is a freakin' gold mine.

Added: And then they'll leave some secret mark on your house so no one comes anymore. At least that seems to have been the case. BTW, I'm VERY polite to them.

OneDollarJuana

True story: my brother was bothered by JW's and Mormons on a regular basis. One day a pair of JW's came up to the door. My brother spied them and sent his 5-year-old son out to greet them. His son happened to by playing with an off-color Philipino sculptural souvenir that had a dick on a spring. My nephew answered the door holding the icon by the cock. The JW's took one look, said "oh my" and left.

He was never bothered again.

zhubajie

I put up Chinese door gods, posters of heavy-set men in full armor, brandishing weapons — the most serious martial artists you can imagine. Missionaries don't bother me at all.

ThundercatHo

Exactly. Just ask them to prove the bible is the absolute truth without citing the bible. Makes their heads explode. Other great questions to ask : What if the bible is wrong? and How can you expect me to "just have faith" in something that you cannot prove?

zhubajie

Ask'em if their Bible has the Book of Enoch, see what they say. If they've never heard of it, tell'em Jude quotes it.

Ducksworthy

I have also found that they can be induced to move heavy household appliances from the basement to the curb.

[redacted]hse

Wait- Step'n Fetchit? Slim was a honky.

biocurious

I'm glad the fundamentalist Christians are finally taking a hardline stance on everything Jesus stood for – like racism and the hoarding of cash and possessions.

What limited contact with the outside world they had came through the Dutros' roles as parishioners at Antioch's Calvary Open Bible Church, which the women
said condemned them and defended their father when they would speak out about the abuse — even after Zion was convicted of molesting one of them in 1995.

zhubajie

It ain't just catholics!

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/ Madfall

Fuckin poor people, how do they work?

biocurious

Hey Mads, long time no ___.

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/ Madfall

Well if you will stay away from the family arguments and miss the weekend sexblog, *harrumph*

http://wonkette.com Zvi_Bleindmeis

Render bupkus unto Caesar.

Suffer the little children to be homeschooled and taught how to shoot.

When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites who stand in the synagogues and love to be seen by men. Use a bullhorn, and fire some warning shots if they aren't listening.

Beloved, love one another. Freaking homos.

Give us this day our daily lottery ticket, so we might be able to move out of this crap neighborhood with all the whores and poor people.

biocurious

For the love of equality is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after selfishness, godliness, faith, anger, xenophobia, and hating the three Ms – Muslims, Mexicans, and marijuana.

mayor_quimby

That is correct! How long until a candidate runs on a pure Jesus platform and they say 'fuck that guy' ? Not long, if they haven't already.
And +100p on your avatar and nickname, fucking awesome!

AngryGeometer

There is no god but Godzilla.

mrpuma2u

Yeesh. T-Paw seems to be doing some crazy shuffle-step, trying to appease both the bat-sh!t crazies on the right, and still seem like a bland honkey who can garner enough of the moderates to limp his way into the nomination.

zhubajie

There are moderate Republicans any more? I thought they slept with the fishes and the liberal Republicans!

mavenmaven

The only thing they need to know about is White-Person-Jesus and the requisite guns needed to protect him.

Jesus loved sharing as the exchange of God's goodwill among his flock.

However, Jesus also taught his apostles that the theft of one's rightfully earned income in the form of taxation by ILLEGITIMATE heads of state is no less a blaspheme than to fornicate upon the Image of God.

[redacted]hse

Say, just where IS this Image of God? Just curious, no reason or anything.

That smile just screams, "I'm tolerating an abusive marriage because I can't admit to myself or my family my innermost desire for female companionship, for Jesus"

comrad_darkness

Win.

Radio_Level_7

She's Radio pretty

[redacted]hse

I'd be willing to spew on that face if I knew she'd find out.

undeterredbyreality

You sure that's not T-Paw in drag?

Negropolis

Ayeeeee! It's the Church Lady.

Biel_ze_Bubba

Yecke!

owhatever

Oh, I wish I wuz in de land ob ten-thousand lakes,
Folks up dere got wot it takes
To make me
Run away, run away, run away
And get warm.

comrad_darkness

In related news: In a letter to President Obama on Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry requested federal emergency assistance, saying all but two of the state's 254 counties had been threatened or affected by the fires.

Hey, bitch, I thought you were seceding. . .

glamourdammerung

I am sure the federal government could set up some kind of contract to assist Texas at a reasonable market rate.

Guppy06

Emergency assistance is no way to reduce the deficit!

http://timothysees.blogspot.com/ natl_indecency_cmdr

I saw this and thought the same thing. makes me wish Obama was the type of asshole that would say something like "I thought you seceded." or something like what Bush did w/ Katrina. "You didn't fill out the paperwork correctly. sorry."

OneDollarJuana

Obama to Perry: I understand your problem, and as President I understand your troubles, but let me be perfectly clear. Go fuck yourself with a flaming tumbleweed. Hope the Mexicans take you back instead of resurrecting Santa Ana to do it right this time. And don't let those brush fires near the U.S. border, otherwise I'm gonna ship Fukushima to Texas as a goodwill gift to your fine country, or kingdom, or barren wasteland, whatever you wanna call it when you secede. Sincerely, the President of the 49 United States.

Oh, the hypocrisy! Oh, the hypocrisy! Rick Perry requests federal aid! If I were Obama I'd answer him by finding that Oregon post office employee, flying him over Perry's mansion and telling him to do his thing. Then I'd give him a raise.

Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream
of what I need

I need a hero…

Steverino247

DEATH TO TRAITORS!

OneDollarJuana

And Jeebus is the King Kong of the Jews.

Negropolis

I thought Jesu was the Prince of Pees?

poncho_pilot

can Mohammad be played by Jet Jaguar?

horsedreamer_1

Sacreligio!

http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com trampndirtdown

Harding also claims Ken Starr as a notable alum even though according to wikipedia (Kenneth Starr: lawyer, professor, former Office of the Independent Counsel, former dean of the Pepperdine University law school, and current president of Baylor University. (Starr did not graduate from Harding; he received his degrees from George Washington University, Brown University, and Duke University)

http://timothysees.blogspot.com/ natl_indecency_cmdr

also, “training ground for a lifetime campaign in the trenches of political warfare.”

a training ground. for a lifetime campaign.

see? they won't stop.

zhubajie

Is that for real? I'd love to see it!

Santa crucified in a Tokyo department store's Xmas display was for real.

zappadoo76

I am seeing fascism develop right in front of my eyes and I can't believe it. It's all there: the middle class mass movement (Teabaggers) financed by big capital (Kochs et al.) aimed at destroying democratic rights and trade unions and solving economic problems by aggressive war while repressing an unhappy populace with a police state.

Did I leave anything out? I'm sure I did. But I don't want to believe it.

No wait. There's always a charismatic leader, like Tim Pawlenty.

fuflans

stop it. you're making me believe in the rapture.

Steverino247

You say that like it's a bad thing. Come the Rapture, these assholes will be gone.

trumpbly_joe

Meh, all these wingnuts make the critical error of assuming that if there *is* a rapture, they're the ones that'll be going.

Biel_ze_Bubba

Maybe they're wrong, but this Rapture thing still sounds like it's worth a try.

horsedreamer_1

Debbie Harry infuriates me, & those new jacks from Omaha, with their complicated haircuts, get on my last nerve.

fuflans

i do remember that horror. little did we know just the beginning of the batshit crazy republican chick taking over the entire bloody party.

God it urks me when wingnuts pretend fascism and Communism carry the same reasoning when they arrive from completely different views, espouse different ideas and expect different results. Any time a wingnut does that, casually links the two it right away shows they don't have a clue what they are talking about and should probably just shut the fuck up. It's not that I even like either ideology, it's the casual lazy ignorance and arrogance of it…fascism is collectivism, come fucking on, wingnut.

Anyway, just wanted to get that one off my chest, wonkette is a good place to blow off the irritation created by grating ignorance + arrogance= wingnut.

Oh, and I fucking hate wingnuts.

ShaveTheWhales

C'mon Ken, there were no Nash Ramblers still running in 2000.

My first car was a Rambler, but even in 1966 it was an "American Motors" Rambler. A piece of shit, but cheap. It carried me from Milwaukee to China Lake and back for three summers of Civil Service work, back when that option still existed for college students.

Terrible car. Some pretty good times though. Except for the war. But we apparently always have those.

Steverino247

And don't you DARE feel gay when Johnny come marching home again!

tribbzthesquidz

DARE to be misinformed and bullied.

tribbzthesquidz

There are a lot of places in this country, where parents would be wise to yank their kids out of public school for the opposite reasons of the current caricature of homeschoolerz. Unhealthy, unsafe, dumb jesus nuts, kafka-esque, bad food, DARE, faith-science, faith-sex ed, caste system. Those who can't afford the nice private schools are going to have to be making it more on their own or networking with like minds, off the grid, if they don't want their kids joining the conspiracy of stupid.

finallyhappy

I have met people who homeschooled for those reasons- although by High school put kids back so they could learn higher level science and math(and I think we have pretty decent schools here-althoough yeah, bad food)

poncho_pilot

George Washington Carver and Ben Franklin. either one could kick their collective asses.

ShaveTheWhales

My name is Yon Yonson, I come from Wisconsin…

MadBrahms

Quoth Wikipedia: "Campaigns against "Dixie" and other Confederate symbols have helped create a sense of political ostracism and marginalization among working-class white Southerners"

That must just be awful, not being able to identify with your southern heritage, by which I mean the days in which you not only turned men into chattel but also conquered them by expropriating and making a mockery out of their language.

You have to be at least a *bit* more subtle with your crypto-racism; talk about "state's rights" or some other canard. Dixie? Seriously?

Negropolis

"Campaigns against "Dixie" and other Confederate symbols have helped create a sense of political ostracism and marginalization among working-class white Southerners"

Talk about drawing false moral equivalencies. I really can't sympathize in any way with this. If Southerners can't find pride in their region outside of their historic rebellion, they deserve to be ridiculed. I just don't get it. The same goes for Texas and the "we are so proud we were once an independent nation" bullshit. Yeah, you couldn't stand that fucking culturally enlightened Mexico had outlawed chattel slavery, so you withdrew from their union. Don't mess with Texas, eh? Fuck Texas.

Honestly, can they not define themselves in any other way? Is there no pride in the South outside of having had an economy based on owning people and treating the vast majority of the population (poor whites) as sharecroppers and subsistence farmers? The entire system was depraved, yet they want to remember it as the good ole days.

I really blame the US government on this one, what with giving up on Reconstruction and all, which allowed for the entrenchment of Jim Crowe that haunted the region for another 100 years+.

horsedreamer_1

It only took the GOP sixteen years to become entrenched. (Well, 22, but 16 from Lincoln's first election.) Had the party barons & big business interests been willing to let Tilden in, the Congressional Republicans could have continued Reconstruction.

schvitzatura

Yeah, a few more decades of wrathful grape vintage stomping the Sesesh into model citizens would have been beneficial to all concerned.

Maybe Reconstruction, Part Deux is in order…

ShaveTheWhales

So, "Dixie" in Minnesota. Actually, I guess I must have learned it as a kid in Wisconsin, since I more or less know how it goes.

However, let me tell my anti-Dixie story.

I went to the University of Wisconsin. In 67 or 68, I think, we hosted an NCAA Regional (what is now referred to as the Sweet Sixteen).. As it happened, we weren't in it (and it didn't matter anyhow, 'cause UCLA had that Alcindor kid), but Marquette (from Milwaukee) was. Since it was at the Camp Randall Fieldhouse, there were some (shitty) seats available for students, so I went. One of the semifinal games was Marquette vs Kentucky. Kentucky was, in those days, kind of like Duke is now — always contenders. The team was also — and it's hard for me to believe this memory — all white. They were also pretty good, but Marquette (not all-white) managed to beat them.

At the closing buzzer, the Marquette band struck up a tune, but not the Marquette fight song — they played the Battle Hymn of the Republic. And once the crowd figured out what was going on, 14000 people joined the chorus.

widget2011

This, my friends, is the St. Ronald of Raygun legacy. Isn't it lovely? Lower taxes for billionairs, rampant racism and LGBT bigotry, cronyism, union busting, biggest per capita prison population on earth, endless drug testing for all, teabagging idiots, permanent right wing supreme court, homeschooling. As a matter of fact, almost everything that is wrong with the United States can be tracked back to this senile, superstitious, bible thumping moron. Any room left on Mt. Rushmore?

Epic Fail.

102415

No bible thumping. He never went to church and didn't care who knew. As for the rest of what you said, carry on.

horsedreamer_1

370 down, 249,630 to go.

The world is watching, Scooter.

carlgt1

ugh, read about the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg and you'll see how appawling Tim's choice of Dixie is. I guess it's OK to be a despicable, insulting asshole when you're a RepugliKKKan….

ttommyunger

And up is down, and black is white and TeaPaw has a chance at being President.

emmelemm

The Rambler was my mom's first car, after she and my dad got divorced when I was a little kid. No idea who recommended that such a car might be a good fit for a single mom, but it was always breaking down. This was also concurrent with the oil embargo of the 70s, so, gas station lines and such. (Good times! Not really.)

Once the Rambler died for good, my mom got an adorable blue Datsun B210.

He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;
They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.